Osian Winters – Carmarthen

May 2018

Paedophile tried to hide what he was doing by using smart TV and library computers

A child sex offender was playing “cat and mouse” with the police trying to hide his internet activities by using a smart TV and computers in his local library, a court has heard.

It also emerged Osian Winters was working in a popular cinema after failing to make full disclosures about his convictions on a job application.

A judge told him he was in denial about the seriousness of his “deviant” sexual interests, and that all the signs pointed to him being a “committed paedophile”.

Swansea Crown Court heard police went to Winters’ flat in Carmarthen town centre in February this year after “concerns” were raised about his employment at the town’s Vue Cinema.

Dean Pulling, prosecuting, said Winters was taken to Ammanford police station for questioning, and denied having any devices for accessing the internet.

However, police searched his home and uncovered a wifi internet router – from that they were able to tell the defendant’s Samsung television in the living room was a “smart” TV connected to the internet. When the browser on the telly was checked it was discovered he was logged-on to Facebook under the name Daniel Price.

Police also found Winters had a Google account which had been used to carry out searches on subjects including how to wipe internet histories, and how to set up password-protected folders.

It also emerged Winters had made multiple visits to Carmarthen library to use its computers – CCTV showed him using the machines, but the court heard the internet histories of the PCs are wiped after user log-offs, and it was therefore not possible to check which sites he had been visiting.

Winters, aged 24, of Guildhall Square, Carmarthen, had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.

The SHPO was imposed in 2016 after Winters was convicted of six counts of causing or inciting a girl under 16 to engage in sexual activity, and two counts of possessing indecent images.

These offences relate to extensive and sexually explicit online Skype chats he had with a 15-year-old girl.

The court heard Winters has convictions for 18 offences – all of a sexual nature – including one for exposing himself and performing a sex act in front of a young girl on the Millennium Coastal Path, exposing himself in Gorslas Park, and engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child. He also has convictions for breaching court orders, and for failing to promptly tell the police about his change of name from Scott Aaron Williams.

The court heard when Winters had completed his Vue Cinema job application he had filled in the section about “convictions” with a list of things he had not been convicted of such as theft, but did not mention any of his sex offence convictions.

Francis Jones, for Winters, said the defendant had spent 10 weeks in prison on remand since his arrest, and when granted his liberty was hoping to return to the line of work where he had previously found employment – working in a call centre.

Judge Geraint Walters told the defendant: “For a relatively young man you have got a pretty awful record for just one thing – sexual offences.

“Your deviant sexual behaviour goes back to a time when you were a teenager. All the signs are suggesting that you are a committed paedophile.”

The judge said the sentencing options open to him were to imprison Winters for a relatively short period, or to order him to complete a sex offenders’ course – something that hitherto had not been done despite the defendant’s record.

Winters was sentenced to a three-year community order – the longest available – with a rehabilitation and sex offenders’ programme requirement.

The judge told him that he either “put his back” in to the rehabilitation course to address his problems, or he could look forward to spending “lots of time inside in the coming years”.

Referring to Winters securing employment with Vue, the judge said it was “astonishing” that suspicions had not been raised by the way he answered the conviction question on the application form.